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Robert Butler KC Star 7/9/09

At the halfway point, my summer movie scorecard
By ROBERT W. BUTLER
The Kansas City Star
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At the halfway point, my summer movie.
And guess what? Most of the big, ballyhooed releases were disappointments.

Still, since May 1 I’ve handed out nine 3 1/2 -star reviews … highly unusual in a season when movies are supposed to signify mindless diversion.

Just goes to show — there are always good movies out there. You just have to trust something other than the trailers.

•Dashed expectations: Every summer begins with high hopes for certain films because we’re already on board. They reek of comforting familiarity.

Why, then, do they so often let us down? It’s probably because their makers figured they wouldn’t have to do much more than show up.

That’s the case with “Terminator: Salvation,” “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.” Technically these films are spectacular. But good luck finding sustenance for your head or your heart.

At least they made lots of money, unlike the abysmal “Year One” and “Land of the Lost.”

•Professional competence: The good news is that Hollywood has not lost the ability to make a commercial movie that doesn’t suck your brains out through your ears.

Take, for example, “Star Trek,” a reboot that was way funnier, exciting and evocative than it had any right to be.

Or Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell” (a horror/comedy of superior slyness), or Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” (a satisfying kickback to the classic gangster drama with yet another fantastic performance by Johnny Depp).

For a different kind of crime drama there was the acting duel between Denzel Washington and John Travolta in “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.”

Slightly less memorable but still effective were Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons” and Sandra Bullock’s comedy “The Proposal.”

•Documentary delirium: Sorry to sound like a broken record, but the best movies being made today are documentaries. This summer we’ve seen a slew of fantastic ones.

They range from “Tyson” (a sort of autobiography of the much-maligned prize fighter) to “Anvil: The Story of Anvil” (a real-life “Spinal Tap”), “Every Little Step” (a history of the musical “A Chorus Line” blended with auditions for a recent Broadway revival), “Valentino: The Last Emperor” (the fabulous but fragile world of haute couture) and the locally made “Cowtown Ballroom … Sweet Jesus” (about KC’s legendary rock emporium of the early ’70s).

Opening Friday is “Food, Inc,” a documentary about where our dinners come from that’s so incendiary it will change your eating habits.

•Dramatic fireworks: I didn’t see most of these films coming. And yet they are the summer’s surge-from-behind winners.

For example, you wouldn’t think a story about a lovesick sheep herder on the Asian steppes would have much going for it. Yet “Tulpan” was one of the most mind-blowingly cinematic films of the year. And without special effects.

“Goodbye Solo” was an intense little effort about a chatty taxi driver from Nigeria and his fare, a suicidal old man. “Lymelife” was a searing coming-of-age drama with Kieran Culkin witnessing the marital implosion of his parents (Jill Hennessy, Alec Baldwin).